VideoLan launches Kickstarter to make VLC for Windows 8

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VLC player is an incredibly powerful tool, usually one of the first things many people install on a new computer. With Windows 8 growing at its current rate, developers are beginning to realize that they might actually have to supportit.

The VideoLan project is comprised mostly of developers who contribute in their free time, and since the release of the VLC for Windows 8 demo it has become clear that more help is needed. In order to support Modern UI (aka Metro) in a timely fashion, the VideoLan team have taken to Kickstarter in order to fund the development of VLC for Windows 8.

“The current application has more than 15,000 forbidden calls. Fixing that will take a lot of time (or money).” – VideoLan CTO Jean-Baptiste Kempf

According to the VideoLan team, VLC media player is installed on over 100,000,000 machines across the world. The project supports Linux, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and more. Instead of having a program that forces the user to Desktop Mode to use VLC (as it’s currently designed), the goal is to release a native Windows 8 app. Unfortunately, in order to support Windows 8 and the Modern UI, a lot has to change. Since the team wants to get Windows 8 support up and running as fast as possible, they have turned to Kickstarter.

The £40,000 ($51,975) project will allow the VideoLan team to hire professional graphic designers and developers to create a functional UI that supports Windows 8’s design language. Initially the plan is to support x86 versions of Windows 8, but Windows RT support is in the pipeline as well.

The Kickstarter features multiple levels of participation, offering everything from small gifts with the VLC logo on it to banners on the VideoLan website announcing your contribution . Every contribution includes acknowledgment inside the Windows 8 app itself, separated by participation level.

VLC media player for Windows 8 would provide a usable alternative to Windows Media Center, which is something users will need to pay extra for if they haven’t purchased Windows 8 Pro. Media Center is needed in order to watch DVD or BluRay discs in a Windows 8 computer. While Microsoft is including Media Center for free to early adopters of Windows 8, the $10 add on will be a requirement to users who want to watch movies on their computers. With VLC for Windows 8, users will not need to ever purchase the add on, and instead enjoy the massive list of supported codecs from VideoLan.